Ah Charleston, the city of historical charm. A few weeks ago I went with my mom and my cousin on a trip through Charleston and Savannah, and then back down to my house in Jacksonville. If you are thinking of going, go! It's definitely a beautiful place.

And while you're there, here are a few things to check out:

historic district walk

I recommend taking this walk during the day (so you can take pictures of all the millions of cute houses and peek into the secret side gardens) and at night (so you can see it all lit up by gas lanterns). If I could, I would go back and take pictures of every front door to make my own coffee table book, one that probably only I would love. The colors, the molding details, the hardware, the flower boxes--everything so different and perfect. Unfortunately, I was too entranced admiring the general splendor and breathing in the perfume of a million jasmine flowers blooming everywhere that I didn't really take many pictures. Dang, I guess that means I'll have to go back!

I've recently stumbled upon the work of Dinara Mirtalipova. Absolute gorgeousness! She is a self-taught illustrator like me, but with tons more personal style and confidence. (If you've missed out on the explanation for the "stealing" series, read this post first).

From her I'm going to steal:

So many intricate details, layers and layers and layers of them!

Use plants and flowers to add character: She definitely inspired me to use floral ornamentation on my vintage kitchen and sewing notions kits)

A consistent color palette: Sometimes I think I would get bored using the same colors over and over again, or that my work would look too monotonous, but her consistent color palette really adds to her personal style. I can definitely recognize her work because of it.

I always take way too many photos of my babies when I'm trying to capture their smile on camera. Usually I finally get one, plus some other really funny faces. I did this layout back in 2011 to document my daughter's faces.

When I saw the viewfinder layout by Kinsey Wilson on Pinterest, I knew it would be perfect for scrapping the photos my son's smile. However, all of the viewfinders I have are too small. I want to see his expressions (especially because the pictures were taken at night)! So I created my own in Illustrator. It isn't perfect, not even close--don't even think about measuring the distance between the squares and it's very simplified. I decided to put the viewfinder clipping mask up for free download for y'all in case you want to scraplift the layout too! FYI: it is not a viewfinder element, but a clipping mask so you will have to clip your own paper(s) to it.

Used parts from the following kits: Free as a Bird by Jenn Barrette, Blue Skies by Jenn Barrette, On my Desk by Paislee Press, My Heart is Full by Captivated Visions

Hey! I suddenly had some scrapping mojo and got a few pages done that I'd like to share. I've been struggling to scrap my instagram pictures (most of my pictures right now) because there are so many to put on a page, plus the captions. If you are having trouble with the same thing, or missing your mojo, I included all of my layouts below as templates for free download at the end of the post. Hope you are inspired! [. . .]